Caroline County Emergency Services expands efforts in Federalsburg and Preston

CAROLINE COUNTY, Md. – Caroline County Emergency Services is ringing in the new year by expanding their efforts in Federalsburg and Preston.

This expansion has been in the works for several years but now the county commissioners have found a way to fund that expansion starting January 1st.

Bryan Ebling, Director of Caroline County Emergency Services tells 47 ABC, “We expanded to what we call a 5th station, it means that we staff five paramedic units, 24 hour 7 days a week in Caroline County. We are staffing an EMT and paramedic in Federalsburg and EMT and paramedic in Preston and they both have transport units.”

Prior to this expansion, there weren’t as many hands on deck.

Captain Corey Beebe explains, “What we call it is the south end of the county, for Preston and Federalsburg you only had two units and they made up one unit so what that means is two days out of four, you had a EMT in Preston and a paramedic in Federalsburg.”

Throughout the years, the north end of Caroline County received a higher call volume, but now, that’s changing. We’re told south county units have been running up to 1,400 calls a year and many times, they have to rely on other counties to help.

“When they first designed it, two split units, the call volume down here wasn’t as bad well then that drastically changed over the years. I’m not saying they were playing catch up but they were trying to find a fast track of how to get the whole county the same and now we’re there,” Beebe says.

Neighboring support staff like the Federalsburg Volunteer Fire Company are also excited about the news.

They say it could create a faster response time and a quicker turn around for hospital transport. We’re told before this response time ranged from 2 to 15 minutes but now that could be cut in half.

They are planning an open house to show off the facility in Federalsburg. Ebling says there’s not an official date just yet but they plan to have it at the end of January or the beginning of February.

We’re told it’s a way to check out the facility and see their crews.

Ebling says their next effort is to expand their supervisor time because currently they provide supervision to crews only 12 hours a day 6 days a week.